Lancs councils divided on reorganisation route as options sent to govt
Lancashire’s fifteen local authorities do not see eye to eye on how to split up the county as part of a comprehensive overhaul of local governance, with five different options put forward.
Each council has had its say on what it thinks Lancashire should look like post-reorganisation. It is now up to the government to decide on the merits of each option ahead of a consultation next year.
Elections for the new shadow authorities could take place in May 2027, with the new councils assuming full responsibility for services from 1 April 2028.
The five options on the table are as follows.
Two unitary authorities – this option proposes dividing the county in half with the River Ribble as the dividing line.
North – Lancaster, Fylde, Wyre, Blackpool, Preston, and Ribble Valley.
South – Blackburn with Darwen, West Lancashire, South Ribble, Chorley, Hyndburn, Burnley, Rossendale, and Pendle.
Lancashire County Council is the only one of the 15 authorities in favour of the two-way split.
Three unitary authorities – this option proposes a three-way reorganisation comprising Coastal Lancashire, Central Lancashire, and Pennine Lancashire.
Coastal – Lancaster, Blackpool, Fylde, and Wyre.
Central – Chorley, South Ribble, West Lancashire, and Preston.
Pennine – Blackburn with Darwen, Burnley, Hyndburn, Pendle, Ribble Valley, and Rossendale
This option is preferred by Blackburn with Darwen, Fylde, Hyndburn, Rossendale and Wyre councils.
Four unitary authorities option one – a four-way split proposing North, East, South, and West council areas.
North – Lancaster; Preston, and Ribble Valley
East – Blackburn with Darwen, Burnley, Hyndburn, Pendle, and Rossendale
South – Chorley, South Ribble, and West Lancashire
West – Blackpool, Fylde, and Wyre
This is the preferred option of Chorley, Lancaster, Preston, Ribble Valley, South Ribble and West Lancs councils.
Four unitary authorities option two – largely the same as option one save for some important differences concerning Wyre, Preston and Ribble Valley.
North – Lancaster, rural Wyre, and North Ribble Valley
East – Blackburn with Darwen, Burnley, Hyndburn, Pendle, Rossendale, and south Ribble Valley
South – Chorley, South Ribble, and West Lancashire
West – Blackpool, Fylde, Preston, and urban Wyre
This is otherwise known as the Blackpool option, given that Blackpool Council is the only authority promoting this split.
Five unitary authorities – a five-way split that introduces a fifth ‘middle’ authority area, as well as North, East, South, and West, incorporating Blackburn with Darwen Hyndburn, and Ribble Valley.
West – Blackpool, Fylde, and Preston
South – Chorley, South Ribble, and West Lancashire
Middle – Blackburn with Darwen, Hyndburn, and Ribble Valley
North – Lancaster and Wyre
East – Burnley, Pendle, and Rossendale
This is the preferred option of Burnley and Pendle councils.
The reorganisation can’t come quick enough. As a planner, dealing with a mishmash of small, inefficient councils is a nightmare.
By Peter Black
Lancashire with its 16 councils, many extremely small and the county to large and cumbersome has been a mess for years . Its local government structure has been holding back the county for years . The fact that they have come up with so many , mostly unworkable options shows the problem. The three large councils based on functional economic areas makes most sense .
By George
This story would be a lot more readable with maps. Presumably there are merits to each option, why aren’t these summarised at all?
Without knowing any details, I think splitting existing authorities (as in Blackpool’s proposal) is a bad idea, and that it being otherwise the same as the other four authority option but only being supported by one authority, should lead to it being discounted.
Three or four unitary authorities feels reasonable to the scale of Lancashire. No idea which is better overall but the names are better for the three authority option.
By Cass
Turkeys voting for Christmas! To present 5 options is a nonsense. 2 or 3 Unitary Authorities is surely the most cost effective and efficient split?
By Bash the Housebuilder!
It’s still a shame nobody is making any case for West Lancs to move into the Liverpool City Region, although there’s a reasonable case for any West Lancs/South Ribble/Chorley split having associate membership based on adjacency (even if not really relevant to Chorley).
In anything other than the two four-unitary options, West Lancs loses out by being linked with Preston which it no longer has much to do with and would shift focus.
The five-unitary option looks like just a cynical attempt by certain East Lancs cllrs to hold onto their local powerbases and can be disregarded, and the two-unitary option is pretty ridiculous in terms of lumping random places together on a scale which would be difficult to manage practically and politically.
Any new South Lancs unitary will likely reinvigorate calls from Southport to secede from Sefton, even if ministers aren’t receptive.
By Town Clerk
What about one council for the whole county?
By Lanky
Let’s not kid ourselves: West Lancs is Merseyside in everything but name. People here don’t wake up thinking about Chorley or South Ribble — they live their lives pointing straight at Liverpool. Ormskirk already acts like a Liverpool suburb, and Skem desperately needs the proper transport links it should’ve had years ago. The culture, the jobs, the travel patterns, the identity — it all lines up with the Liverpool City Region, not some bolted-on Lancashire combo that makes zero sense on the ground. Sticking West Lancs with towns it barely connects to is just bad geography and worse common sense. If we’re being honest, joining up with Merseyside isn’t a big idea — it’s the obvious one.
By Bill
Five options? Makes you feel that democracy is sometimes overrated.
By Anonymous
Rearranging chairs on the Titanic… if the rearrangement cost millions to deliver.
Absolute waste of time and money, no one was elected to do this.
By Anonymous
Hmmm. Central Lancashire. Where’ve I heard that before??
By Aitch
Lancaster should have joined up with a ‘Morecambe Bay’ arrangement with Barrow, South Lakes/Westmorland etc but jumping in with Preston and Ribble Valley is probably the best option of those listed here.
By BLS Bob
Yet another case of top-down re-organization of government (or simply administration) is the name of Efficiency/Profitability. By now, nobody knows where they live anymore, with all these innovative place names for these new administrative organizations. At least it does away with the myth that we live in a democracy: Where to you live? Trafford, Cumbria, Tameside, Cheshire, West Yorkshire, Lancashire, Greater Manchester, Liverpool City Region. Thank goodness this repeated re-organization is cost-free.
By Anonymous
Nobody calls The Moors the “Pennines”. The name was made up by a trickster anyway. Not a lot of folk know that; not a lot of folk care.
By Anonymous
Nonsensical this, what do Chorley, South Ribble and West Lancs have in common? Am I not understanding the point of the devolution deal is to give local councillors more control over money and decision making? In what world does it make sense to allow councillors in Chorley and South Ribble to have any opinion or say on an area that is 17 plus miles away and shares no local identity. I echo other comments, this was a perfect opportunity to take West Lancs out of Lancashire and place it where it already belongs, Merseyside and the Liverpool City Region. Shame on West Lancs councillors for not pushing government for reorganisation.
By Peter
We had this fiasco in. Berkshire over 30yrs ago it driven up council taxes and driven down quality as the expertise at county level was not replicated by our 6 unitary authorities
By Woodleyclaret
Anything that results in LCC Highways Development Control being abolished
By Anonymous
As someone living in Aughton, it’s mad that Liverpool is right on my doorstep but my council tax is going to Preston 20 miles away. We get nothing for it. Skem still has no train station. Put us in the Liverpool City Region where we actually belong.
By Luke
Still trying to fix the mess of 1974 boundaries. Sefton/Southport could have stayed in Lancashire County Council or taken West Lancs with them (nothing “Mersey”-side about Southport really though). Insisting on splitting the Morecambe Bay Area is bizarre. Putting GM’s boundary near Rivington is hilarious, I saw the (cancelled) congestion charge cameras planned for country lanes there (?!). A big North West mayoralty would have been simpler for planning, although judging by GMM, places can get ignored. I’m not sure if these proposed councils will unite under a mayor though???
By Black Rose
As in 1998 — there should also be the options;
* NO CHANGE or another option of;
* RETURN TO PRE-1998 STATUS OF A FULL LANCASHIRE COUNTY. This would prevent Duplication of services, economy of scale, and provide a County Overview of Service Provision
By Rose
To really understand how unaware these councillors are, read the latest LancsLive post ‘How a shake up of West Lancashire could take place’. I quote ‘But other factors include West Lancashire’s mixed economy including farming and market towns, its range of local identities and shared boundaries with various areas.’ I’m really struggling to understand where this conclusion is coming from, Lancashire County Council published the below statement referencing the 2021 census ‘Commuter flows between West Lancashire and other Lancashire-14 authorities (6,979) were much lower than those to and from Merseyside (16,793) showing greater connectivity with that sub-region.’ So if an area has greater connectivity with the rest of Merseyside and the Liverpool City Region, how do we get to a conclusion that the only sensible option is to join up with Chorley and South Ribble?
By Ben
One of the principal parameters of this reorganisation is for the population of the new authorities to be circa 500 thousand residents.
Only the Coastal, Pennine and South, three unitary authorities, satisfies this objective, and is coherent geographically.
To link Lancaster and Preston is totally illogical.
The Blackpool proposal is crass, completely banal, and typical of an authority largely bereft of any form of ability whatsoever, at both elected and appointed levels.
By Glen